The cost and practicality of communication between two points is often a factor of bandwidth, message size, and distance. Specifically, mobile devices are typically restricted to comparatively short range communications to peer devices (blue tooth, infrared, near field) and bridged through longer distances through WiFi, cellular mobile radio towers and the like. Even at a larger scale, e.g. between ships at sea, the cost of direct microwave peer to peer between ships is radically less expensive than satellite connectivity.
Long distance communication is typically afforded by a bridge to a background media such as wired networks, Internet, microwave, synchronous and asynchronous (low orbit) satellite, even relayed by aircraft that are typically much more costly than the short range connectivity of the mobile device. Further, the information may be intercepted, when broadcast over such long range means by an unintended third party.
Mobile devices are becoming social. In advanced societies, the majority of individuals now carry cellular communication devices, many of which can also communicate with limited range wireless means. If a protocol existed, these devices could pass a message to another device by short range hopping from one nearby device to another. Indeed, a considerable distance could be covered if the protocol allowed the message to spread amongst a crowd of such devices to an unknown, but specific destination well beyond the capability of a single peer to peer connection.
One analogy is the parlor game where a first participant whispers a message into the ear of another, who similarly passes the message to another, and so on down the length of a sofa to a final participant. The message arrives, albeit often humorously distorted, but out of the earshot of a whisper. With modern digital content verification, such as a check code—and—modern data encryption, the message can arrive intact, precise, and unknown to the intervening participants. The humor of the parlor game is lost, but the message arrives.
Now think in terms of an air traveler who whispers in the ear of each person that they meet some parts of a whole message: “My name is Tom Traveler and I'm looking for Joe Smith who is here to pick me up; tell him to meet me at the baggage claim number 26” and that message is passed peer to peer, between all the individuals milling about the busy airport until it eventually arrives at Joe Smith. Discounting the obvious social faux pas of randomly approaching strangers this way, the message does arrive and if it were digital, it would again be intact, precise, and unknown to the intervening participants. And Tom Traveler gets his ride home.
Some of the figures illustrate diagrams of the functional blocks of various embodiments. The functional blocks are not necessarily indicative of the division between hardware circuitry. Thus, for example, one or more of the functional blocks (e.g., processors or memories) may be implemented in a single piece of hardware (e.g., a general purpose signal processor or a block or random access memory, hard disk or the like). Similarly, the programs may be standalone programs, may be incorporated as subroutines in an operating system, may be functions in an installed imagining software package, and the like.
It should be understood that the various embodiments are not limited to the arrangements and instrumentality shown in the drawings.